The annual award recognises the significant contribution of a specific body of work – in an exhibition or publication format – by a living photographer of any nationality, with the winner receiving a cash prize of £30,000. Works by the shortlisted photographers will also feature in a travelling exhibition, beginning at The Photographers’ Gallery in London on 23rd February, where the winner will later be announced in May 2018.

In 2017, the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize was awarded to Dutch photographer Dana Lixenberg for her publication Imperial Courts. The project is an intimate collaborative portrait of the residents of an underserved housing project in Watts, Los Angeles, to which Lixenberg made countless trips over a 22-year period. Images from the Imperial Courts series were brought to Unseen Amsterdam in 2014 by Robert Morat Galerie.

A member of the Sputnik Photos collective that, in 2015, presented a mixture of works from the post-Soviet region at Unseen Amsterdam, Rafal Milach is shortlisted for his recent exhibition, Refusal. Shown in 2017 at Atlas Sztuki Gallery in Lodz, Poland, the exhibition focuses on how mechanisms of state control were applied in a range of post-Soviet societies, including the artist’s homeland. Additionally, the Switzerland-born artist Batia Suter is nominated for the publication Parallel Encyclopedia #2, the production of which she described in Unseen Magazine #3: ‘In the process of making this book, narrative lines unfolded before my eyes as I shifted images around during the editing process. It was like a game of chance, and sometimes something would emerge that just made complete sense’.

Mathieu Asselin and Luke Willis Thompson, nominated respectively for the publication Monsanto A Photographic Investigation and the exhibition autoportrait, complete the shortlist.